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Category: Personal Development

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Best Practices Culture Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development

Bureaucracy or Trust? Choose One!

The old cliché reads, “Actions speak louder than words.”  It’s true.  It’s especially true when a leader wants people to trust him/her.  Besides agreeing on this cliché, can we also agree how important trust is to the performance of a team and performance of an organization?

Successful leaders must be proactive in their approach to managing trust because it has such an enormous influence on what I call the performance troika: organizational performance, employee engagement and on customer experience.  Successful leaders must behave (take actions) in ways that create an environment that shouts, “I trust you!”.  The four key elements of the Autonomy Card can help leaders send this important message of “I trust you!”. 

In May 2018 two brothers aged about 5 and 7 decided to help an under privileged child in a foreign country.  They wanted to sell lemonade on a hot spring day. Mom and Dad thought it was a great idea because it could help teach the boys entrepreneurial business skills, customer service skills, and charity.  What could be better?  The Denver Police disagreed. The Denver Police were forced to disagree because someone called to complain.  The boys did not have a permit and they were selling lemonade too close to a Denver Arts Festival.

In a bureaucracy. young boys cannot be trusted to run a lemonade stand for fear they will not do it according to the rules set up by local bureaucrats.  What lesson are the boys learning from this?  Is it how to be an entrepreneur? How to be a good citizen?  How to care for others less fortunate? NO!  They learned they can’t be trusted by some neighbors and some bureaucratic administrators who have control over economic decisions of a 5-year-old and 7-year-old boy.

A bureaucracy is an environment that is opposite of an environment of trust.  A bureaucracy is an enemy of engagement and customer experience because of its inflexible set of impersonal rules and regulations which demand specific actions.  The rules are more important than innovation.  The myriad of rules prevents creative thinking by individuals especially for responding to the continuously evolving customer needs and expectations.

In environment of trust, individuals make the decisions, from their perspective, that best serve a clear purpose and vision.  This autonomous environment is easy to understand and sends a clear message, “We trust you to make the best decisions!”  A successful leader knows the key elements that provide autonomy and trust.  Leadership is challenging and paradoxical.  You want to have rules, but you don’t want to have a bureaucracy.  Understanding and developing the key elements of The Autonomy Card can help address this challenge.

The Autonomy Card

There are four key elements in the Autonomy Card.  These can allow a successful leader to trust employees while optimizing decision making and innovation.:  1) Clear legal and ethical standards, 2) Clear values behaviors, 3) Clear mission, vision, and strategy, 4) A commitment to optimize customer experience.

If these four elements are clear, and employees admit they are clear, will provide the autonomy that allows them to make decisions and to be engaged.  The Catholics call this subsidiarity.  It’s the ability to make decisions to solve problems at the least centralized and most competent level possible.

Clear Ethical Standards

Successful organizations often have very clear ethical standards listed in an employee handbook.  These rules provide guidance in basic subjects such as company intellectual property, use of company materials and equipment, substance abuse, discrimination, harassment etc.  These are the very basic, are common sense, and are useful as a reminder to all.

Clear Values Behaviors

Clear descriptive behaviors allow employees to know how they will be treated.  For example, if treated with respect, they will have less fear to speak up.  If they will be coached and not criticized they will be more likely to take risks.  If they keep their agreements others are more likely to keep their agreements and everyone will feel safe.  Specifying these behaviors contribute to creating a safe, creative, trusting environment.

Mission, Vision and Strategy

A clear mission explains why a company exists.  A clear organizational vision explains where the company is going and what it will look like in the future.  A clear strategy provides the suggested priorities about how to live the mission and move toward the vision.

Customer Experience (Internal and External)

Consistently providing great customer experiences generates long lasting benefits such as loyalty, referrals, and higher profitability.  This focus includes both internal customers (colleagues) and external customers (those who pay for the products and services).

Once these four elements are clear and employees make an agreement to make decisions consistent with them, it’s time for the Autonomy Card.

The Autonomy Card

If the answer to all four questions is YES, do it!

  1. Is the action consistent with legal and ethical standards?
  2. Can it be done with values behaviors?
  3. Is it consistent with the mission, vision, and strategy?
  4. Will it enhance customer experience?

It may be scary to adopt the Autonomy Card because it sends a clear message “I trust you!” and sending that message requires courage. It is easier to create a bureaucracy than to create a trusting environment.

What if the Denver boys could have been allowed to form and run their lemonade stand? What benefits would it have generated for them, their family, their neighbors and the disadvantaged children?  What would higher trust do for your organization?  Try the Autonomy Card and see.

Check out the interview on C-Suite Best Seller TV to learn more about how to stop leadership malpractice and replace the typical performance review: https://www.c-suitetv.com/video/best-seller-tv-wally-hauck-stop-the-leadership-malpractice/

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Management Negotiations Women In Business

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is your road map to success. It brings a sense of focus, improves business self-awareness, and motivates employees to work towards a common goal.

Pick specific priorities by determining the direction of your organization.

Create a plan of action with key players within your organization and external experts/consultants/coaches.

Allocate resources by using resourceful thinking.

Be flexible.

The process of strategic planning involves exceptional interpersonal skills, as it promotes the open and creative exchange of ideas, including putting disagreements on the table and working out effective solutions.

It is important to exercise attention to detail and using SWOT analysis is a great way to recognize assets and risks:

Strength – attributes of the business that can help achieve the objective

Weaknesses – attributes of the business that could be obstructive to achieving the objective

Opportunities – external factors that could be helpful in achieving the objective

Threats – external factors that could be obstructive to achieving the objective

Strategic planning is essential for the success of your organization.

 

Michelle Nasser, International Executive Coach , Speaker, Author “Leadership Assessment for Success”, Podcast Host “Michelle Nasser Show”

www.michellenasser.com

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Investing Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

When Should You Act More Like A Stubborn Child

“Childlike behavior can be advantageous to adults when adults use them in an adult-like manner.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“He was told that he should not act like a stubborn child. Then he became more obstinate.” Those were the words exchanged by associates as they discussed the behavior of a friend of theirs.

When they were children, most adults possessed a limitless amount of imagination and a boundless degree of determination. As they became older, more mature, their childlike actions were abandoned so that they could be perceived as fitting into their environments. Unknowingly, conformity to those environment norms may have cost them opportunities.

Do you recall your childhood? When you sought a specific outcome, how determined were you to achieve it? How many ‘adult rules’ did you break in your efforts to uncover the solution to your quest? Then, you got older and supposedly wiser, which meant, you left those childish ways behind. Truth be known, those childish ways served you well then and they can serve you well, now.

When you find yourself in situations that you really want to get to the bottom of why certain actions occurred, or if you want to enhance the probability of a particular outcome, be persistent in uncovering a solution.

The point is, you will only receive in life what your actions indicate you’re willing to put forth to achieve. If something is denied you and you don’t put up a fight to get it, you send the signal to the holder of that source that what you sought wasn’t really that important to you. Either way, you’ve set the stage for future interactions and degree that you’ll fight for what you want. Thus, if you give up easily when requesting something, the person to whom you make that request knows that he only has to say no a few times and you’ll slither back into your den of mediocrity. Your hopes for future opportunities will lackluster and you’ll have no one to blame except yourself.

When it comes to achieving more in life, when appropriate, consider acting like you did when you were a child. Ask why, how come, who else, type of questions. You’ll be rewarded with greater outcomes in life … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations? 

Some negotiators use stonewalling tactics to keep you from reaching your goals. They may do so to enhance their negotiation position. If you use probing questions (e.g. why can’t that be done, who else might be able to approve this, what do you suggest we do to avoid this impasse), you’ll receive greater outcomes from your negotiation efforts. That’s true because you’ll acquire more insight into what’s really behind the other negotiator’s efforts to disallow your request. Once you know that, you’ll be better positioned to hone in on the discovery of what he’d rather keep hidden. Your probing with questions, like you did when you were a child, will reveal those hidden opportunities and bring them to light.

#Business #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions #Psychology #Perception #ControlLife #Control #leadership #HowToImproveYourself

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Sales Skills

Three Sales Strategies for Even Keel/Indifference

Indifferent or “Even Keel” mode happens when  a buying influence sees no compelling reason to change what they’re doing. Because any change (including a purchase of something different) needs to overcome the uncertainty and interruption factor of that change, indifference happens any time the perceived value an improvement doesn’t outweigh the perceived cost of change.  To get someone out of Even Keel, you need to change their perception somehow:  reduce the perceived cost of change — or increase the perceived payoff from making that change.

Indifference is common, threatening many sales opportunities by causing the prospect to default to the status quo.  It’s often the biggest competitive threat in play. Great sales professionals prepare for indifference so they can plant the seed for perception change during that next meeting…the only one they can count on ever getting.

I was recently asked for a list of the strategies that a sales professional can use to get a buying influence out of “Even Keel” or “indifferent” mode.  He’d read in The New Strategic Sellingabout waiting for the person’s perception to change, and knew there had to be more options available.

Perception is personal. Thus, changing perception should be about people. Let’s examine whomight serve as catalyst for changing a buying influence’s perception to leave indifference behind.  There are three sources of perceptual change:

  1. The prospect changes their own perception based upon perceived change in their environment or situation.
  2. The sales person is the agent of change. That is, the sales person influences the process of changing the prospect’s perceptual change.
  3. A credible (to the prospect) third party acts as perception-changer.

Here are some thoughts on the three strategies for dealing with indifference, to help you prepare for your next sales interaction:

Let the buying influence (BI) change their own perception.

I list this strategy first because many sales people don’t consider it fully. When you are taught to “take control of the call” or something similar, the strategy of letting the flow of events do your work for you is counterintuitive.  While it’s not always the shortest path, it works directly on the perception of the prospect.  There are a couple of variations.

1. Let them fail on their own. When this option works, it works great.  Prospects are likely to transition directly into “I’m in trouble” mode, which is highly leveragable.  It also means you need to politely maintain contact.  Be the one with share of mind to get their first call, then be the most responsive.  Unfortunately, this route can take a long time.  This option is one of the few viable options when the prospect is so overconfident in their current solution that their willingness to listen to anyone is limited.

2. Let them watch as a competitor begins to win. This is a variation of the ‘let them fail” option.  Only certain buying influences will be in a position to see this or care that it’s happening: affected sales people and sometimes  top executives (it can be less impactful to User or Technical buying influences).

The Seller changes the  Buying Influence’s perception

 Note: credibility is foundational for this strategy.  If a prospect doesn’t trust what you are telling them, you can’t build a case for change.  I work with my clients to establish and build credibility at all times — for this reason and more.  Once you’ve got credibility, you can:

Show the prospect that reality isn’t as acceptable as they perceive it; that potential losses from doing nothing are higher than they perceived.  Help them see their problem more broadly (in MHGroup terminology:  help them change their Concept, or solution image.). My readers, who are familiar with my focus on customer value will recognize the imperative to uncover unrealized value.

  1. Uncover and crystalize needs. With deeper investigation, implicit needs become explicit.
  2. Examine the impact of any existing gaps in more detail. What is the “impact of the impact” (including monetizing it).
  3. Think about the prospect’s role in the sale and in the decision dynamic for ideas on possible perception changes. This will help you prepare some high-impact discovery questions.

Mutually discover that you can help them solve a business problem that they didn’t see being connected to your solution. Again, you need credibility with this prospect to secure time to do extra discovery…or to do it in small bites over time.  This means expanding their concept.

Find a sufficiently compelling personal win,tied to a result. If a buying influence sees an adequate (but previously not compelling) business benefit plus a significant newly-realized personal win, that business benefit will become one they are willing to advocate to their peers. Some possible wins:

  • Be the first to respond to a budding problem.
  • Propose a solution before a rival within the company does

Have a trusted third party change the target’s perception.  

 Much of what I said about salesperson-led change above applies below—if your credibility is less than needed, this option might be a good one.  To execute this strategy when needed, you’ll need credibility with that third person.  Here are some options:

A co-worker changes their perception. This person’s credibility will be the key to their mind, and helping that co-worker find a role-appropriate gap may be needed.

  • Might you need to coach that co-worker? How?

Executive adjusts their perspective. Credibility with the target prospect is not a big problem when it’s their boss. Making sure the buying influence saves face or comes out with a personal win should be a point of emphasis.

A Coach changes their perception. A Coach is anyone who has credibility with your target, and who wants your proposal to succeed (Miller Heiman Group alumni: there’s one more criterion. Quiz:  what is it?).  These people can advance and promote the case for change.  Caution:  don’t let your coach cross the line to selling on your behalf, or do anything that damages their own credibility with other buying influences.

Takeaways:

Every salesperson soon learns that status quo is often the biggest hurdle to be overcome in many sales situations.  Buyer inertia is a presence in just about every sales situation, and salespeople need to be able to deal with it.

Salespeople need to build credulity in every customer interaction. This lays the foundation for everything they try to accomplish in the future:, open the prospect’s view to new options , establish value of options…even gain the right to secure a meeting in the future.

Pre-plan how you will bring value to every interaction.  Using your domain expertise in your offer/solution/service/product is of limited value to most prospects.  Apply that domain expertise with insights and knowledge of the prospect’s unique business situation, and your perspective can have that rare value sought by today’s more sophisticated buyers.

If you’d like to talk about creating value with prospects, it’s a skillset I am passionate about helping my clients improve..  Comment below, or contact me directly (mark@boundyconsulting.com) to share your unique challenges.

To your success!

Categories
Best Practices Growth Health and Wellness Leadership

Self-Care is Not a Perk

It is the foundation for peak performance.

If you think you have to wait to take care of yourself and your needs until you are home from work, you are not alone. I had a boss one time, who told me that he did not need to eat lunch, so neither did I.

Now thankfully I am a Danish girl, who is used to eating lunch, so I told him that he would not want me around, if I did not have lunch. He sort of snorted and huffed at me, but I got to eat my lunch, though admittedly at my desk, while working, to avoid being yelled at.

There is something seriously wrong with our work-culture, when we get yelled at for taking a lunch-break. When I was working at ESPRIT in Europe, lunch-breaks were mandatory.

Everyone had to come to the canteen to eat together. It would not only build better team-work, because people who eat together chat and bond, it would also assure that everyone had the energy to work at their best for the rest of the day. Mind you everyone worked hard there, or maybe I should say focused. See work seems hard when we struggle to focus or have the energy. Or of course if an assignment or project is difficult, but when people say they work hard, it often means they feel drained and they are not having fun.

Not perks, essentials.

Lunch-breaks and health benefits are equally essential, but the difference is that one is preventative and the other we often don’t use until we burn out or get sick. Same thing with being able to pause and go get some fresh air to boost mental energy or take a walk to get rid of feeling stuck, starring at the same sentence in the presentation you are trying to write. These are all essentials for a good work culture. Not something we wait to do until we have time or we simply cannot keep going any longer and need to take a break. Pushing ourselves to the point of burn-out is a culture of struggle at work, a fight and flight mentality, that pushes us into survival-mode.

Survival-mode is not performance.

Being on survival-mode is not the same as performance-mode or the kind of stress that we thrive on to go beyond our comfort-zone for growth. On survival-mode we are hyper focused on getting out of trouble, we are in a fear-based work environment and we are trying to get to the finish-line of a project, because we are scared of what might happen if we don’t. It can be anything from; my client is going to fire me, my boss is going to yell at me, or even just missing a dead-line that is affecting other people if missed. If you add lack of water, food, pauses and rest to the mental state of stress, you are working on the edge of burn-out rather than the edge of creativity, performance and innovation.

Self-care is the foundation for work-performance.

When I consult with companies and leaders about how to shift from a personal and organizational mindset of survival to a mindset of performance, we start with self-care and how the daily work habits support each individual in doing their best work. Nourishment of a healthy work-force happens from the top down. When the leader eats, everyone eats. When the leader is healthy and practicing good self-care habits at work, everyone gets to take good care of themselves at work too. Now this is not just because we want everyone to be healthy, the point here is whywe want everyone to be healthy.

Health is not the goal, it is the foundation for doing our best work and peak-performance, because a healthy business comes from the inside out. A healthy business is about healthy people, happy people.

People who work healthy and go home happy with energy to spare. That is healthy work/life integration. Are you ready to change your work-habits around?

Find more information at jeanettebronee.com or get in touch on email to learn more about how you and your company can get healthy.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Categories
Entrepreneurship Management Skills Women In Business

The “IT Factor” – Do You Have It??

Have you ever seen someone walk into a room and immediately capture everyone’s attention?  Perhaps, it was a business meeting, a networking event or a stage performance.  That person just had such a commanding presence, that you felt drawn into their conversation. That ability to draw people is at times called charisma. In show business and on stage we call the “It factor”, in the business world you call it Executive Presence.

Some say you either have it or you don’t, that you’re born with it. While that might often be the case, I have seen people transform by making changes to their mindset and appearance.  As a result, they changed the way they were seen by others.

Think of your favorite actor, singer or politician. Maybe it’s a leader in your company.  What gives that individual the “It Factor”?

While they may have had the talent they still needed to develop the skillsets.

Here are five things that you can practice in order to increase your own “It factor”

1. Have a made up mind – People are drawn to certainty. After all, every ship needs an anchor. /spending time gaining clarity in what you want. Know what direction you’re moving in. Know your Why, yet, still be open and flexible

2. Be comfortable in your skin – Look the part, express calm energy. Dress for success. Match your company culture with your appearance. Show up clean, groomed, practice good posture, and personal hygiene.

3. Be charismatic – Energy draws people in. If you tend to be more on the quiet side, step out and express more. Practice your communication skills. Exude confidence without arrogance; being a little humble goes a long way.

4. Show genuine interest in others and be approachable, you’re not the only one in the room. Be inclusive and be interested in others and what they have to say. From your handshake and eye contact to your listening skills and body language, be present with others.

5. Know who you are and Be Yourself– people will see a right through you if you’re not authentic. Whether people are aware or not, we all have a “personal radar” and people can often spot when someone is insincere even if they don’t know why they are sensing it.

The more you practice the suggestions above, the more comfortable you will be in your leadership role. As a result, the more your team members will choose to engage with you and seek your guidance.

You will find more tips like the “It Factor” in Dr. Jacobson’s Book “Power Conversations”. For information and to order copies go to https://bit.ly/2tYRo2k

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

What Is an Emerging Leader and How to Help?

When I decided to write my book for emerging leaders, I interviewed people to learn how
others understand the phrase, “emerging leader.” I asked a random sample of individuals the
simple question: “What is an emerging leader?” It was quite illuminating to hear the various
interpretations.

The most popular response was that an emerging leader is a high-performing employee in a
corporation who shows great promise as a leader. Perhaps the next most popular response was
that an emerging leader is a young person who shows leadership potential.

Those definitions are certainly accurate. However, there were other definitions I heard and
others I have experienced in my corporate career. Individuals who are fresh out of college, those
early in their career, and even students are emerging leaders. Also, there is increasingly a new
class of employee who transitions into a completely different career than the one they started in.
They may not fit the traditional definition, but they, too, are an emerging leader. Finally, we might
say that anyone embarking on a leadership opportunity is an emerging leader.

Because there are several interpretations of what defines an emerging leader, I believe it is
important to expand our traditional lens. Let’s examine each word independently.

Emerge

Merriam Webster provides a simple definition of emerge. It means to “become known” or to “come
into view.” That definition is quite fitting in our examination of what it means to be an emerging
leader. If we look at it as “becoming known” as a leader, that means it is far more applicable
than the traditional definition. With this expanded lens, the opportunity is open for many more
people to “come into view” as a leader in the eyes of others.

Leader

What does it mean to be a leader? Many definitions exist. Having followers makes a person a
leader. The act of leading. Having a title or position of superiority. These are basic concepts of
leadership. Leadership, however, is far more complex than these rudimentary definitions.

What good leadership is, what moral leadership is, what transformational leadership is, and
much more needs to be considered when defining leadership at its highest level.

In Adaptive Leadership, the work of Dr. Ronald Heifetz, he explores the roles the words authority and
influence play in relation to leadership. Truly emerging leaders recognize the power of influence
without authority, position, or title in their quest to become known and seen as a leader to others.

How to Help Emerging Leaders

Coaching is a powerful way to support emerging leaders. Coaching helps emerging leaders develop
their leadership potential more fully and faster.

As an executive coach, I have worked with emerging leaders identified as high potentials in their
organization to help them accelerate their performance. I enjoy working with these individuals who
already have leadership titles but are emerging in a new way.

Over the past year, I have had the tremendous privilege of working as an independent professional
leadership coach with a different type of emerging leader: students at Rice University’s Doerr Institute
for New Leaders. Rice has embarked upon what Founding Managing Director General Tom Kolditz
calls, “the most comprehensive leader development initiative at any top-twenty university.” Working
with these young people—starting as early as eighteen, in some cases, and spanning into the late
twenties when working with doctoral graduate students—has affirmed my belief in what an emerging
leader is and why the lens must be broader than traditionally held.

Working with the Rice students and seeing the measurement and results show the value of what can
happen when you use the power of coaching to bend the arch early in developing emerging leaders.
The leadership skills they have acquired are transforming their lives and the lives of those who will
be led by them.

In addition to coaching, I believe using a proper assessment tool to help emerging leaders understand
themselves is important. In working with leaders, I help them understand the difference between
their IQ (intelligence quotient) and their EQ (emotional intelligence). Historically, people were taught
it was important to have a high IQ to be a good leader and achieve success. A growing body of research
suggests that having a high EQ is a better indicator of good leadership and future success.

I am a certified emotional intelligence practitioner. When working with emerging leaders, I use the
EQ-i 2.0® and EQ 360® as my assessment tool of choice to help identify and develop emotional
intelligence.

Conclusion

Everyone, not just a select few, has the potential to become known as a leader. Emerging leaders
recognize the power of influence without authority, position or title in their quest to become known
as a leader to others.

To help emerging leaders continue their emergence, we must help them continue to develop. One of
the best ways to do that is to provide coaching with the use of a proper leadership assessment tool.
The world needs great leaders. Let’s do our part to continue to identify, help, and develop new
emerging leaders!

 

This post is an excerpt from Eddie Turner’s forthcoming book entitled: 140 Simple Messages to Guide Emerging Leaders. Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator™ is a C-Suite Network Advisor ™ and a change agent who has worked for several of the world’s “most admired companies.” Eddie “works with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact!”™ Contact Eddie at (312) 287-9800 or eddie@eddieturnerllc.com

Categories
Growth Personal Development

How Differentiation Beats Marketing Tactics Every Day

I work with a lot of large companies on their content marketing strategy, and they are always expecting some new technology, a different take on their data, or some exciting new AI technique. What they aren’t expecting is for me to ask them about their differentiation.

Differentiation somehow seems quaint in these modern times. With all the bits and bytes flying around in digital marketing, such old-fashioned marketing seems unimportant. But it’s actually more important than ever.

Here’s why. Content marketing isn’t a victory of technology or analytics or anything else except messaging. Content marketing is the salesperson who never sleeps, who overcomes every objection, and who is there for every prospect who wants to find your product. But you don’t win content marketing on volume. You can’t just make more and more of it and expect people to find it and reflexively buy.

Instead, content marketing is about creating messaging that the people who should buy from you will find. And who are those people? The ones that you are differentiated for.

The problem is that most marketers don’t really understand the full meaning of differentiation–it’s not just more than mere difference. It’s a difference that a particular market will pay for.

And that is where content marketing needs to start. You need to understand your personas, and your buyer journey, but without understanding your differentiation, you won’t know which personas to target. You won’t know what to say at each buyer journey step. And you certainly won’t be persuasive enough to get anyone to buy.

With all the content out there, you can’t just keep creating more messaging targeted at more people with more problems. Instead, you must be more targeted. You must focus on exactly the problems your best customers have. By satisfying them, you create the case studies that persuade even more. Only by doing so can any of the exciting digital marketing tactics make an impact. Your differentiation is the core of your strategy–it drives the tactics.

So, yes, it is important to understand your product. But it is more important to understand how your product is more perfect for your ideal customer than your competitors’. That’s the power of differentiation.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Investing Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

In Negotiations Be On the Alert For Setup Questions

“Setup questions can be to a person what a snake charmer is to a snake, mesmerizing. Watch the person that uses setup questions to mesmerize you!” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“I can’t believe he asked me when I stopped beating my wife. I’ve never beaten my wife; I love her too much to do that! Those were the dejected words spoken by a man that was in the throes of a messy divorce proceeding to the question posed by the lawyer of his soon to be ex-wife.

Are you aware of how and why setup questions are designed to motivate you to a particular thought or action? In negotiations, you should be on the alert for setup questions.

A setup question (e.g. Most people would be horrified if that happened to them, right?) is used to position someone’s response as measured against what is viewed as being normal by others; it can also be used to alter the thought process of an individual.

The challenge to the responder is, if he answers contrary to the norm, he appears to be outside of that norm. That makes him appear to be abnormal. That’s a position that most people attempt to avoid, especially when such is exposed to others. The perception of abnormality can position someone as, he’s not like the rest of us, which can place that person in a squeamish position. It’s another way to apply a sense of unseen but felt leverage upon him.

When this tactic is used to alter someone’s thought process, it can be even more devastating, due to the attack on that person’s mental psyche. Thus, it can also be used to take someone off the offense and put them on the defense.

This tactic becomes more burdensome to the recipient of this ploy when used by someone that’s an aggressive or bully type of negotiator. The reason being, when confronted by an aggressive negotiator, more than likely, you’re already experiencing a heightened sense of anxiety. That may be in the form of just being more aware of your negotiation environment. The point is, you’re not relaxed, you’re on edge. That will prohibit your normal thought process from occurring which could lead to making errant decisions.

To recount, in all of your negotiations, be aware that setup questions may be posed at different times and for multiple purposes. They can be used:

For the purpose of altering your mental state. Once your mental state is altered, you may be more susceptible to falling into a defense that simply keeps you off the offense.

For positioning purposes, a setup question may be used to have you viewed in an unflattering manner, so as to marginalize the perception that others have of you and to disallow them from having empathy to your point or position.

To alter one’s mind, such questions may also be used in an attempt to make you forget, defuse, or confuse the point you were attempting to make.

The more alert you are to the possibility of setup questions being used in your negotiations, and how they might be used, the better prepared you’ll be at defending yourself against them. Doing so will give you an advantage in the negotiation … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating! 

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com 

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Growth Leadership Personal Development

7 Ways to Delegate Successfully

One of the most difficult things for Type-A business owners is to delegate successfully. Some people say, “If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself!” They think, “Nobody can do it like I can do it.” And they may be right, but you must delegate sooner or later. Simply put, there’s just too much to do in a growing business, and it’s impossible to do it all yourself.

It’s a compromise, but we think successful delegation is a two-way street. The business owner must be able to accept less-than-perfect work. At the same time, the contracted individual or employee must develop new habits, accept new responsibilities, and ultimately move out of their comfort zone.

After years of experience, here’s what we’ve learned. Most of it was painful. But maybe it will help you delegate more successfully.

1. Find Extrapolation Learners. Those who are able to extrapolate the fundamental principles from an example and apply that information to a completely unfamiliar example are great candidates for delegation. Since it’s easy to get copy-and-paste examples for pretty much everything online these days, many people don’t bother looking for underlying principles.You’ll find people who respond, “Like what?” to everything you ask, even though they’ve seen the same principle in action before. Do not delegate to these people. Only delegate to those who pull overarching principles from their own experience and examples given in trainings.

2. Seek Integrity. When people keep working on assignments you don’t ask about regularly, voluntarily keep you posted on their projects, and do what they say they will, they are great candidates for delegation. Look for those who take responsibility instead of blaming others. When you have to ask about what happened on that project, don’t delegate to people who say, “They never got back to me,” because they didn’t voluntarily inform you. Avoid delegating to those who have shown they’ll accept minimal responsibility in order to get their paycheck.

3. Find Self-Starters. When seeing the big picture, if someone initiates appropriate action, improves an unstable situation, or mitigates a problem all without being asked, they are a great contender for delegation. They still might need some supervision, but they aren’t as likely to require micro-managing. Don’t delegate to those who’ve shown they need constant supervision and oversight.

4. Seek Coachability. When people apply constructive criticism, show steady improvement, and look for policies and procedures that can help them work more efficiently, they are excellent candidates for delegation.Avoid those who take professional critique personally, or don’t seek help out of wanting to appear all-knowing and self-sufficient.

5. Seek Mistake Learners. It’s necessary to accept that mistakes will be made. Find candidates who learn from them, see them as opportunities to get to the bottom of an issue, write up new documents to prevent these mistakes from reoccurring, and candidates who can improve your business’s policies and processes.Avoid people who try to cover up or hide from their mistakes, or who blame others (finger-pointers). Rid your company of those who keep making the same mistakes.

6. Give Regular Reviews. In the beginning, give more frequent reviews to avoid any misconceptions or potential bad habits. Always return to the principles. Remind the candidate of the importance of growth, sales, and profitability. Review the decisions they have made so far, offer your advice on the ones that need improvement, and validate the right ones.

7. Provide Incentives. Create a bonus structure for anyone you delegate to, and make sure you both agree on the specifics. Use this new plan for just a year, so you can improve requirements in subsequent years as you fine-tune what’s needed to get the results you’re looking for.

 Delegation isn’t an art form, but you can lessen the risk of failure by recognizing attributes in others that will give you peace of mind and confidence. Train your candidates on the operating principles and the process know-how necessary to take on the involved responsibilities. Then, give them regular reviews and clear goals—and let them do it their way.

We like to say, “When the cement is wet, you can move it with a trowel. When it gets hard, you’ll need a jackhammer.” So, really overdo it on orientation, make sure they understand where their pay comes from (sales!), and make sure your candidate understands the underlying principles that will guide them in making decisions. Then, accept that mistakes will be inevitable, and accept that they might make choices that will be different than what you would do. Who knows—some of those choices might even be better! 

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/